From a very young age, most Jedi are removed from their families and homeworlds to serve a “greater purpose.” Many Force-sensitive beings don’t remember their lives before moving to and studying at the Jedi Temple.
For centuries, most of these Jedi never — knowingly, anyway — returned to the places they were born. They knew nothing of their parents or what their lives could have been if the path of the Jedi had not been chosen for them.
Surely most Jedi never thought they’d ever be able to see their homeworlds … even if they did, every now and then, contemplate the possibility.
Then Order 66 happened. And, at least for one Jedi, the idea of retreating to the place from where they came was suddenly no longer a possibility … but instead a necessity.
In The Bad Batch Season 2 Episode 6 “Tribe,” former Jedi Padawan Gungi finds himself in this exact situation. He is a young Wookiee and a Clone Wars refugee on the run from all sorts of threats. But most of all, he has to protect himself while also doing what he can to hide the fact that he’ can use the Force.
He knows deep down there is only one thing he can do: Return to Kashyyyk, the place he once called home. He may not know which tribe he belongs to or if he will even find anyone left who might be willing to help him.
But it’s the only choice he has. If there is a safe place for him in the galaxy, he will find it there.
So Gungi gets to do the one thing most Jedi before him never could: He gets to return home. He gets to redefine who he is and who he wants to be. He gets to choose to serve the place and the “people” who will accept him for no reason other than he belongs there among them.
There are no blessings in tragedy. But the universe does have a way of working things out for the better in the end. Gungi survived Order 66, one of the most traumatic events in the history of the Jedi. He will remember that for the rest of his life … and Wookiees live a very long time.
But on the other side of that, he found something he otherwise wouldn’t have.
Gungi returned home, and there, he found his forever family.
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